Cartoon Action Hour

Whereas most RPGs give all characters an identical list of attributes (such as Strength, Agility, Intelligence, etc.) and a variable collection of skills, Cartoon Action Hour rolls them all into one type of statistic known as Traits. Each character will have a different list of Traits, with ratings ranging from −4 (nearly non-existent) to 4 (maximum human capability), with 0 being average.[1]

To represent Traits with superhuman or supernatural levels of ability, the designers use super-ratings. Characters with a Trait rating of 4 may have another number in parentheses, ranging from 2 to 5. This super-rating allows the player to roll more than one d12 when testing that Trait, taking the best result.

Superpowers, magic spells, vehicles, weapons, armor, racial abilities, animal companions, psionic abilities, and magic artifacts—They can all be created using the Special Ability creation rules. Each Special Ability is designed by picking and choosing appropriate "components" that define it. For example, an energy blast would need the following components: Damage Rating and Range. This can easily be customized further by adding other components and modifiers, thus making the Special Ability truly unique.

Every facet of Cartoon Action Hour was created with an eye toward faithfully depicting the subject matter, using what the authors refer to as "cartoon logic". A few examples of this are as follows:

• Characters cannot be killed. Rather, they just go "Out of the Fight" (or OOF) for the remainder of the combat scene. Characters can die in a "Movie" episode, however, even there character deaths are not common.
• Huge weapons (such as bazookas, rocket launchers, etc.) deal more damage to vehicles than to characters. In the cartoons, such weapons tend to blow vehicles to smithereens, but when it comes to characters, these weapons usually just hit near them and the impact from the explosion merely sends them flying into a wall. Again, cartoon logic.
• Characters receive experience for participating in After-Show Messages ("... And Knowing is half the battle!").
• The rules institute a quick and entertaining way for characters to fight those swarms of nameless henchmen (such as Cobra Vipers from GI Joe). These minion groups have a single score called Goon Factor, which acts as the Difficulty Number for fighting them. Success means that the character dispatches them (and the player gets to decide how—like pulling the carpet from under their feet, shooting the ceiling and thus trapping them beneath the resulting rubble, and so on). Failure means that the characters are overwhelmed and are captured.